I find this Rotating Rays to be a striking eye trick. This has become one of my favorite optical illusions because of the clockwise and counterclockwise illusory movement of the rays in this static picture. You can try it yourself to see what I mean.

About the Rotating Rays

I have learned that Akiyoshi Kitaoka has created this optical illusion in such a way that the outer ring of rays appear to rotate clockwise while the inner ones revolve counterclockwise. The sizes, position of the dots and white shading has a great influence in the anomalous motion of both outer and inner rays. I have observed that rotation becomes possible because of the two dots on the sides of the diamonds. These dots allow the eyes to become out of focus and the illusion takes place. Moreover, the eye movements and peripheral vision also adds to this illusion.

About The Artist

Akiyoshi Kitaoka is a professor of Psychology at the College of Letters, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan. He received a BSC from the Department of Biology, University of Tsukuba, Japan in 1984 and received a PhD degree from the Institute of Psychology, University of Tsukuba in 1991. Akiyoshi received the “Gold Prize” of the 9th L’ORÉAL Art and Science of Color Prize in 2006 and the “Award for Original Studies” from the Japanese Society of Cognitive Psychology in 2007. Akiyoshi also produces a variety of illusion works and exhibits them in his webpages. His most popular illusion work is “Rotating snakes” which was created in 2003 as an image of the optimized Fraser-Wilcox illusion.

Before Akiyohsi started to investigate visual illusions, he studied Animal Psychology particularly on the burrowing behavior in rats and mice and electrophysiology or neuronal activity of the inferior temporal cortex in Macaque monkeys. Akiyoshi wrote more than ten books on visual illusions or illusion designs. He extensively studies visual illusions including geometrical shape illusions, lightness illusions, color illusions, motion illusions and other visual phenomena including visual completion or perceptual transparency.

Thank you Akiyoshi Kitaoka for allowing us to post and share your magnificent illusion design. If you wish to see more of Akiyoshi’s Visual Illusion works, you can go and visit his website.